Even now, surgeon Peter Duffy has flashbacks about a particular medical emergency — the patient’s agonised screams, the race to save his life on the operating table.

The man in question, in his 40s, had Fournier’s gangrene, a ‘flesh-eating’ infection, and he was deteriorating rapidly, he says.

After Mr Duffy, a consultant urologist, performed emergency surgery, it was touch and go for a time, but the patient survived. The 56-year-old doctor could congratulate himself on a job well done. A life had been saved.

Yet, on the Sunday in question, when he had made the dash to the Royal Lancaster Infirmary, Mr Duffy was not, in fact, supposed to be working. The doctor who was on call that weekend in 2005, he says, was consultant urologist, Kavinder Madhra. Mr Duffy claims the ward sister had been trying to reach him since the previous day, but Mr Madhra was otherwise engaged. Playing golf, as it happens.

Indeed, when he finally turned up at the hospital on Sunday afternoon, after the operation had been done, he was still in his golfing gear, according to Mr Duffy.

This incident was not a one-off, he says. He claims that when Mr Madhra returned to work after a period of suspension, several other serious episodes of clinical negligence involving him took place.